Last week, NCCOS approved funding for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and a Virginia commercial oyster grower to examine the impacts of harmful algal blooms on oyster aquaculture during active blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate algae Cochlodinium polykrikoides and Alexandrium monilatum. In late July 2016, a bloom of the two harmful algal species expanded, intensified, and […]

Toxins produced by harmful algal blooms (HABs) accumulate in marine resources and are a major cause of human seafood poisoning around the world, which impedes economic development and international trade. Tests developed by NCCOS to measure levels of HAB toxins, known as receptor binding assays (RBA), are a standard method for regulatory use and are in […]

Harmful algal bloom monitoring is underway in the Gulf of Maine, with near real-time early warning of potential toxic blooms being provided by three Environmental Sample Processors (ESPs). The ESPs operate like laboratories in a can, sampling cells and toxins produced by Alexandrium fundyense, the red tide alga. Data from the ESPs are used by […]

At the request of stakeholders in the Northeast U.S., NCCOS and the National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center hosted a webinar last month to demonstrate the suite of modeled guidance products the NOAA Ecological Forecasting (EF) Pathogens Team and partners have developed for assessing risk of Vibrio exposure. Vibrio species are naturally occurring bacteria that […]

A new NOAA study, published in the journal Ecological Modeling, anticipates an increase in the incidence of ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) in the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. Southeast Atlantic coast with predicted rising global ocean temperatures due to climate change. Stable or slightly lower risks of CFP are forecasted for the Caribbean Sea. Researchers from […]

NCCOS, in collaboration with NOAA Coral Program partners, released a report assessing the pollution in Faga’alu Bay, American Samoa (a US Coral Reef Task Force priority watershed). Faga’alu is a focus area for significant interagency scientific assessment and management activities; NOAA’s field efforts were conducted simultaneously with USGS work in the watershed. Surface sediment samples were […]

NCCOS and NMFS researchers participated in the Maryland Working Waterfronts Exchange at the Governor’s Hall at Sailwinds Park in Cambridge, MD on June 18, 2015. The meeting was hosted by MD Department of Natural Resources Chesapeake & Coastal Service office with the intent to highlight working waterfront protection and revitalization activities in Maryland’s coastal zone, […]

On July 9, NOAA and its research partners, using an ensemble modeling approach, predict that the 2015 western Lake Erie harmful algal bloom season will be among the most severe in recent years and could become the second most severe behind the record-setting 2011 bloom. The bloom will be expected to measure 8.7 on the severity […]